Lynne Sharon Schwartz. A Stranger Comes to Town. EastOver Press; 203 pages; October 28, 2025. Reviewed by Ruth Pettey Jones
“What I’m interested in is the difference and discrepancy between the self we feel ourselves to be inside and the persona we present to the world.” So says Lynne Sharon Schwartz, whose most recent novel, A Stranger Comes to Town, elegantly explores this inconsistency through the nuances of memory loss and its effects, not only on main character Joe Marzano, but his family and friends, as well.
When Joe goes out for his daily run near New York City’s Central Park, a pizza delivery cyclist crashes into him. He comes to lying on the sidewalk. His ankle throbs. His head pounds. An EMT is asking who he is, but Joe remembers nothing about himself: not his name, address, occupation, family. He recalls some things, like the name of the president (Obama) and movie plots (The Manchurian Candidate,) but nothing of his personal past or present. When a tall, beautiful woman with reddish hair shows up at the hospital claiming to be his wife, Norah, he doesn’t recognize her, either.
Diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, Joe embarks on a journey to rediscover himself, a gift in some ways, but a curse in others: “The pain of not knowing these things gripped like a fierce muscle cramp. And then panic. What would I do from now on? How could I live? The enormity of what was lost spread over me…”
Although he’s understandably suspicious of everything and everyone, Joe goes home with Norah when he’s released from the hospital. Norah tries to prepare him to meet their children by giving him brief character sketches of each one, but Joe objects: “‘If they’re smart kids they’ll know right away that something’s wrong. I can’t just put on an act.’ At that she laughed. ‘What’s so funny?’ ‘You’re an actor, Joe. That’s your profession. If you can act like a private detective, you can certainly act like a father.’”
And so his domestic life begins. Their brownstone is very nice, as are his three children. Vince is sixteen and Kevin is nine. Their adopted daughter, Luz, is four. Joe feels drawn to the kids. He’s not sure, but thinks he might even love them. He’s also unsure about his relationship with Norah, who seems to be holding something back.
One Friday night, the family gathers to watch Joe’s television show, Crime City. He plays the lead, a private detective named Skelligs. Joe is cheered to see that he’s a competent actor, that his character is convincing and tough. He likes Skelligs, finds comfort in the character’s self-confidence and self-reliance. As days pass, he becomes more comfortable with Norah and the kids, too. They seem to be the ideal family. “I’ve been absorbed into a life. And there’s ample proof that it is indeed my life, though I sometimes have trouble believing it.”
Norah gradually begins to relate his personal history, one story at a time. She gives Joe an abbreviated chapter each night, showing him photos from an old-fashioned album. She tells him about his family, his education, his career. How they met and courted. But he has a feeling that something crucial is missing – some critical piece of information no one knows but him. Amnesia, he realizes, is a kind of death. “And even if we spent years with her recounting my life, what she knew of it, what about my thoughts, the life within? Everything that is unrecorded, the sudden shifts in attitude, the flashes of insight, the things you notice on the street, changing your mind about a dozen things, the changing allegiances to people, ideas, the flirting with a new idea.”
After hearing about Joe’s accident, his mother insists on seeing him. He’s disappointed that their time together doesn’t spark any memories. Later, Joe’s estranged twin sister, Susan, visits from Colorado. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other in years, and he can’t help but wonder what happened to change their once-close relationship. What Susan shares about their formative years forces Joe to question his integrity. Would he really do the things she says he did? “Most people’s lives are made of the stories they tell themselves. My life is made up of the stories people tell me… together, they are creating a character… A character I’m not sure I like… must I accept that is the man I am?”
Following an incident with their daughter Luz’s former babysitter, Norah is forced to disclose some unsettling family secrets. Joe begins to realize that his life is far more complicated than he thought. He can’t help but wonder if he has secrets of his own, terrible secrets he can’t remember. He soon discovers that he does, indeed, and uncovering them causes him great distress. The evidence of Joe’s past proves to be a greater challenge than not remembering himself at all, eventually forcing him to accept the man he truly is – not the almost-perfect man he hoped he might be. “The terrifying truth was that over two weeks, I still didn’t know who or what I was, what I had done, what I was capable of.”
Perhaps that is Schwartz’s point. As Joe’s memory returns in fits and starts, he begins to see that his life has its own narrative. And, as in his weekly television series, “characters appear and reappear and play their assigned roles as in ordinary lives.”
Leo Tolstoy famously said that all great literature is one of two stories: a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. In Schwartz’s novel, Joe Marzino is both men at once – that one on a journey and the stranger new to an unfamiliar setting. A brilliant exploration of memory and secrets, A Stranger Comes to Town is a thought-provoking, satisfying novel that suggests how forgetting the past helps us reinvent ourselves.
Lynne Sharon Schwartz, a Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts winner, is the author of more than thirty books including novels, short fiction, poetry, work of translation, and criticism. She lives in New York City.
“What I’m interested in is the difference and discrepancy between the self we feel ourselves to be inside and the persona we present to the world.” So says Lynne Sharon Schwartz, whose most recent novel, A Stranger Comes to Town, elegantly explores this inconsistency through the nuances of memory loss and its effects, not only on main character Joe Marzano, but his family and friends, as well.
When Joe goes out for his daily run near New York City’s Central Park, a pizza delivery cyclist crashes into him. He comes to lying on the sidewalk. His ankle throbs. His head pounds. An EMT is asking who he is, but Joe remembers nothing about himself: not his name, address, occupation, family. He recalls some things, like the name of the president (Obama) and movie plots (The Manchurian Candidate,) but nothing of his personal past or present. When a tall, beautiful woman with reddish hair shows up at the hospital claiming to be his wife, Norah, he doesn’t recognize her, either.
Diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, Joe embarks on a journey to rediscover himself, a gift in some ways, but a curse in others: “The pain of not knowing these things gripped like a fierce muscle cramp. And then panic. What would I do from now on? How could I live? The enormity of what was lost spread over me…”
Although he’s understandably suspicious of everything and everyone, Joe goes home with Norah when he’s released from the hospital. Norah tries to prepare him to meet their children by giving him brief character sketches of each one, but Joe objects: “‘If they’re smart kids they’ll know right away that something’s wrong. I can’t just put on an act.’ At that she laughed. ‘What’s so funny?’ ‘You’re an actor, Joe. That’s your profession. If you can act like a private detective, you can certainly act like a father.’”
And so his domestic life begins. Their brownstone is very nice, as are his three children. Vince is sixteen and Kevin is nine. Their adopted daughter, Luz, is four. Joe feels drawn to the kids. He’s not sure, but thinks he might even love them. He’s also unsure about his relationship with Norah, who seems to be holding something back.
One Friday night, the family gathers to watch Joe’s television show, Crime City. He plays the lead, a private detective named Skelligs. Joe is cheered to see that he’s a competent actor, that his character is convincing and tough. He likes Skelligs, finds comfort in the character’s self-confidence and self-reliance. As days pass, he becomes more comfortable with Norah and the kids, too. They seem to be the ideal family. “I’ve been absorbed into a life. And there’s ample proof that it is indeed my life, though I sometimes have trouble believing it.”
Norah gradually begins to relate his personal history, one story at a time. She gives Joe an abbreviated chapter each night, showing him photos from an old-fashioned album. She tells him about his family, his education, his career. How they met and courted. But he has a feeling that something crucial is missing – some critical piece of information no one knows but him. Amnesia, he realizes, is a kind of death. “And even if we spent years with her recounting my life, what she knew of it, what about my thoughts, the life within? Everything that is unrecorded, the sudden shifts in attitude, the flashes of insight, the things you notice on the street, changing your mind about a dozen things, the changing allegiances to people, ideas, the flirting with a new idea.”
After hearing about Joe’s accident, his mother insists on seeing him. He’s disappointed that their time together doesn’t spark any memories. Later, Joe’s estranged twin sister, Susan, visits from Colorado. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other in years, and he can’t help but wonder what happened to change their once-close relationship. What Susan shares about their formative years forces Joe to question his integrity. Would he really do the things she says he did? “Most people’s lives are made of the stories they tell themselves. My life is made up of the stories people tell me… together, they are creating a character… A character I’m not sure I like… must I accept that is the man I am?”
Following an incident with their daughter Luz’s former babysitter, Norah is forced to disclose some unsettling family secrets. Joe begins to realize that his life is far more complicated than he thought. He can’t help but wonder if he has secrets of his own, terrible secrets he can’t remember. He soon discovers that he does, indeed, and uncovering them causes him great distress. The evidence of Joe’s past proves to be a greater challenge than not remembering himself at all, eventually forcing him to accept the man he truly is – not the almost-perfect man he hoped he might be. “The terrifying truth was that over two weeks, I still didn’t know who or what I was, what I had done, what I was capable of.”
Perhaps that is Schwartz’s point. As Joe’s memory returns in fits and starts, he begins to see that his life has its own narrative. And, as in his weekly television series, “characters appear and reappear and play their assigned roles as in ordinary lives.”
Leo Tolstoy famously said that all great literature is one of two stories: a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. In Schwartz’s novel, Joe Marzino is both men at once – that one on a journey and the stranger new to an unfamiliar setting. A brilliant exploration of memory and secrets, A Stranger Comes to Town is a thought-provoking, satisfying novel that suggests how forgetting the past helps us reinvent ourselves.
Lynne Sharon Schwartz, a Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts winner, is the author of more than thirty books including novels, short fiction, poetry, work of translation, and criticism. She lives in New York City.